College Football

Maybe the guys selecting the college football matchups for big-game exposure late in the season should take a peek at what's playing on the campuses these days. ABC has the Michigan-Ohio State game tomorrow at noon and, later, ESPN sends along the Pitt-Penn State and Southern Cal-UCLA meetings at 4 and 7:30 p.m., respectively.While by no means mismatches, all three games have clear-cut favorites -- Penn State is favored by 21 1/2 points, Michigan and USC by at least a touchdown. Apparently, the only reason the games are on is they've always been on, and possess too many boisterous alumni.

Is it the imagination, or is college football having one whale of a season that has been getting better and better with each passing week?Surefire winners in the interest department are perennial losers suddenly showing up with representative teams or better and turning on their tormentors of decades past. Rice and all those math majors with the 1250 SAT scores beating up on Texas, breaking a 28-year losing streak, on national TV no less, is the thing legends are made of.Wouldn't a Rice-Alabama Cotton Bowl matchup be great with a Crimson Tide player jumping up off the bench and tackling a Rice running back as he's away on a 75-yard touchdown run?

Gettysburg (2-3) at J. Hopkins (5-0) Time -- 7 Series -- Gettysburg leads, 19-11-2 Last week -- Johns Hopkins defeated Franklin & Marshall, 19-7; Gettysburg defeated McDaniel, 20-17. Outlook -- The Blue Jays are not only the sole unbeaten college football team in the state, but they have moved up to No. 18 in the nation among Division III schools. Gettysburg is a dangerous 2-3 team, having knocked McDaniel from the unbeaten ranks last week. The Bullets feature explosive senior kickoff return man Nathan Smith, who has averaged 35.4 yards a return and has taken three back for touchdowns.

The alternatives were order and chaos when Florida State's Gerry Thomas sent that 34-yard field goal toward the uprights late Saturday afternoon.Had Thomas made the kick, Florida State would have beaten Miami and the college football season could well have proceeded into chaos, with as many as five teams having a reasonable shot at the national championship.But when the kick flew wide of the right upright, giving the Hurricanes a 17-16 win, the process became as ordered as a suburban neighborhood.

"We didn't coach very well and we didn't play very well." --Ron Zook, Illinois coach, after 61-14 loss OFFENSE RULES Arkansas State scored on its first four possessions and averaged nearly 20 yards a play in the first quarter, routing Florida International, 66-24. ... Antwan Harris ran for 377 yards on 47 carries, the 10th-highest rushing total in Division III history, and scored four touchdowns in Mount Ida's 65-49 victory over Becker. STREAKS Southern California won its 25th straight, 45-13 over Oregon.

Here were the potential brackets for an eight-team playoff:No. 1 Tennessee vs. No. 8 Texas A&M.No. 4 Kansas State vs. No. 5 Arizona.No. 3 Ohio State vs. No. 6 UCLA.No. 2 Florida State vs. No. 7 Florida.The four major bowls could have served as the quarterfinals, followed by a Final Four and a true national championship game.Which schools would have gotten shafted?No. 9 Wisconsin, which defeated UCLA in the Rose Bowl, 38-31. And No. 10 Tulane, which finished 12-0, but plays in Conference USA against opponents like Army.

The TV repairman:The true fan can slip into a 14-hour college football coma tomorrow with Rutgers and Duke starting it off at noon on Channel 45 and a tape of the Maryland-Syracuse debacle running on Home Team Sports until about 2 a.m. Sunday. The network-cable mix includes Louisville-Ohio State, UCLA-Tennessee, Notre Dame-Michigan, Alabama-Florida and Penn State-Southern Cal. Don't forget to fill the dog's water bowl at some point.Actually, it's a very versatile day tubeside with (1) CBS sending along the only meaningful game in baseball -- Braves vs. Dodgers at 3 p.m., (2)

The guess is that a typical sports fan turns to his haunt and peruses a few stories: Alabama appealing sanctions levied on it by the NCAA . . . Miami player locked up for resisting arrest and battery on a police officer . . . Tennessee drops a couple of starters for involvement in a telephone credit-card scandal. A yawn is swallowed and the reader moves on to the baseball box scores or something else. Ho-hum.It's unfortunate. Anything goes. And it has been that way for so long that people who once used to recoil at stories such as these now simply shake their heads and realize another college football season is upon us.Just in time for a sport beginning its 126th season -- and in time for the fabled Southwest Conference to start its 81st and last campaign -- a book entitled "Unsportsmanlike Conduct . . . Exploiting College Athletes" is about to hit the shelves.